New Growth
by Sumiregusa
Summary: Reposted! One-shot headcanon to explain Kenshin's drastic hair cut at the end of the Manga, because it made me sad. This idea was my consolation! Ken/Kao


_Pwph!_

It was a peaceful autumn afternoon. The sun was shining down from the pale blue sky onto the vibrant reds and oranges of the trees surrounding the Kamiya Dojo and the crisp, dry leaves that littered the ground.

Kaoru sat on the engawa, wrapped snugly in one of her father's old haori, smiling contentedly. She was cradling a cup of hot tea carefully between her hands as she admired the view.

_Pwph!_

She tended to have the afternoons to herself these days, as both Yahiko and her newest student Shinichi had jobs to take care of. It was pleasant to be more financially stable now that she had regular income to count on. Of course, she still went out on training visits to other Dojo's, but it was less of a necessity and more of a pleasure.

_Pwph!_

Her attention turned to Kenshin, who was diligently working on the last of the laundry in the yard. It had become a routine with them now. In the mornings she would teach while he trained privately, and in the afternoons he would do the household chores, while she rested, offering at various intervals to help, whilst he periodically refused.

Kaoru's smile widened slightly at his constant coddling of her ever since everyone else had moved out. He needn't have worried as much as he did though. It had been a hard transition for her, of course, but she was coping.

_Pwph!_

She had initially worried about Yahiko living alone like that and not having the chance to experience a real childhood, and truth be told, she still did. He was only eleven when all was said and done, and whilst she knew he wanted to be just like his hero Kenshin, Kaoru knew that there were some things best not emulated.

_Pwph!_

Looking slyly over the rim of her cup at the man in question, she raised her eyebrows and blew on her hot beverage. He looked peaceful, absorbed in the simple task he was doing. She knew that he found laundry grounding almost, and although she felt a little guilty day after day, just watching him work like this, she was repeatedly reminded by him that he was happy to do it.

_Pwph!_

They had come to an unspoken understanding in this, as with basically everything else. They rarely spoke of the past, or even of the future, and instead focused only on the present and their day to day lives. The silence wasn't uncomfortable, of course, and Kaoru understood his need for peace and normality, because she needed it too, but sometimes she couldn't keep herself from wondering about things. She knew he had no plans to move on now, that he considered this his home, and rightly so, but that was all she could be absolutely sure of.

Oh sure, he cared for her. A lot, if she was any judge, but the way that she cared for him? Possibly not.

_'__Probably not, you mean.' _she thought desolately as she sipped her tea and snuggled in further to her clothes.

_Pwph!_

She had resolved not to ask him. After much thought and quite a few sleepless nights, Kaoru had come to the decision that if he ever wanted to take anything further, he would find a way to let her know. Until then, she would just wait and enjoy his friendship.

Her father had always been against arranged marriages and she wasn't preoccupied by the idea of being a wife or a mother. After all, she already had an heir to Kamiya Kashin Ryu in Yahiko, and frankly, if she couldn't marry for love, then what was the point?

_Pwph!_

She was happy, life was good, and everything was quiet and perfect.

_Pwph!_

Almost.

"Kenshin!" she cried in exasperation, thumping her cup down on the engawa beside her as her patience finally gave out. "Why don't you just ask me to cut it for you?"

With final, irritating, _Pwph! _Escaping his lips as he blew his hair from his face, Kenshin stood from his crouched position and turned to smile at her.

"I wouldn't want to trouble you, Kaoru-dono." he replied predictably as he wiped his hands dry and stretched his back slightly.

_'__It'd be less trouble to cut it than to have to keep listening to you blow it out of your face every twenty seconds.' _she thought dryly, but held her tongue, and her annoyance, in check. Instead she stood from her seat on the engawa and walked towards him, a small smile on her face as she approached her unsuspecting prey.

"It's no trouble, Kenshin," she said sweetly, remembering the old adage 'You'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar' as she stopped short of him and waited. "I do the front of mine all the time, and Tae and Tsubame too."

Kenshin looked decidedly nervous at being backed into a corner thusly, and held his hands up in front of him as he chuckled. "Kaoru-dono, really, it's not causing me a problem as it is, so please don't trouble yourself."

_'__Change tactics.'_ she decided quickly, and slumped her shoulders in apparent dismay.

"You… don't like my hair?"

She watched in satisfaction as his eyes widened in shock and panic at her pout. "It isn't that at all, Kaoru-dono."

He was so easy.

"I… I won't tell Tae or Tsubame, because they would be hurt to know you think they look silly..." Kaoru elegantly lowered her lashes and looked away from him, fingers curling at her chin. "You're lucky I'm so forgiving of your insensitivity."

After a moment of silence, she realised she might have laid it on a little too thick, and peeked back up at him. The amusement dancing in his eyes as he lowered his hands and relaxed slightly was all the indication she needed that she had been caught out and needed to change tactics again.

"Okay fine," she laughed good-naturedly as she turned back to him and reached up to push his hair out of his face. "But look at all this _Kenshin_ you're hiding away under here!"

She was surprised by the softness of his hair as she touched it. Her fingers slid easily through the silken skeins as she pushed it further back and looked intently into his slightly bemused face. Feeling a slight blush creeping across her cheeks as she suddenly realised how overly-intimate she was being, Kaoru tried to keep from making a fool of herself and concentrated on the task at hand.

"You can't hide under there forever, you know." she told him quietly with a gentle smile that he promptly returned, something soft and happy shining out from his no longer obscured eyes.

"Alright Kaoru-dono," he spoke quietly with eyes that seemed to caress her with their warmth. "You win."

He was suddenly too close, and she was too flustered. She released his hair from her fingers and took a step away, laughing in a slightly too forced and high-pitched way.

"I'll go and fetch the shears!" she chirruped as she turned away from him. "You take a seat on the engawa!"

As she moved through the house collecting the tools she would need, she tried to regulate her breathing and slow her heart. Feeling more than a little silly at this suddenly forceful reaction to him, she wondered if maybe this hadn't been such a great idea after all. His hair did a lot to mask his features, and cutting it away would quite likely cause her to revert to a blushing girl whenever he looked at her, squashing the comfortable notions of being 'just friends' she had recently been entertaining.

Kaoru came back out to the yard, finding him sat quietly waiting for her on the engawa as she had instructed.

_'__Right.' _she thought decisively. _'That's enough of that! Just cut his hair and stop being stupid about it!'_

Kneeling down behind him, knowing he wouldn't be startled by her sudden appearance, she set down the shears and the comb on the wooden floorboards beside her. She wordlessly lay a towel around his shoulders to catch the hair as it fell, and gently eased his ponytail out from underneath it. Kaoru hesitated for only a moment before reaching up to untie the scrap of material that tied it all together, and it loosely cascaded down his back, with a quiet _Shh…_

She waited for a moment to see if he was going to protest in any way before reaching for the comb and carefully brushing through the masses of shining red hair. As she worked, cautious of any knots or snags she found, Kaoru couldn't help but notice that the back of his hair, the longest parts, were really badly damaged.

_'__Ten years of neglect is still showing.'_ she thought dully, wanting to somehow eradicate the pain and loneliness this small thing seemed to embody. Even after all this time, after all that had passed, he still carried the signs of his hurt.

Kaoru released a sad sigh and stood, swapping the comb for the Nigiri-basami as she went, and moved around to stand in front of him. She didn't want to notice things like that about him. It made her feel so useless.

_Pwph!_

She looked down in surprise at Kenshin as he once more blew the hair from his eyes, and realised from the look on his face that she had worried him with her frown.

"Your hair is in a terrible state, you know that?" she laughed, in an attempt to reassure him. She waited for some kind of response to this, but he only continued to watch her carefully.

Becoming a little uncomfortable by his searching gaze, she took the blades in her hand and began to meticulously cut away the ends of the hair covering his eyes, forcing him to close them.

After a moment of slightly tense silence, she moved off to the sides and continued to cut away. She was careful not to catch his ears nor to take too much away, but still enough that he could at least see properly.

"You don't like my hair, Kaoru-dono?" he asked suddenly, eyes still closed as he repeated her earlier words. She couldn't help but smile at the lilt in his voice as he said it, and knew that had his eyes been open, they would have been dancing with merriment.

"It's just very neglected, that's all," she replied honestly. "You don't take care of it."

There was nothing but the sound of the shears for a few moments as Kaoru worked, and she couldn't help but notice that the bright hair that fluttered down to land gently on the towel looked almost like the leaves floating around them from the trees to the ground.

"This one did not always have his Kaoru-dono to worry over of such things."

At the use of his old speaking mannerism, Kaoru stopped her cutting and looked down at the top of his head. He rarely used that speech pattern these days, and never when it was just the two of them. She couldn't help but wonder if it had been to make some kind of a point, but she dared not ask, for fear of opening a box that neither of them wanted to touch.

She reached down to the step and once more swapped the shears for the comb and brushed back through, just to make sure she hadn't missed anywhere. Moving around to the front again, she was startled to see him watching her expectantly.

Kaoru could feel her cheeks reddening once again, now that the excess of his hair was gone, his eyes were free to look right through her in that breathtaking way he had. She clasped the comb tightly in her hands, unsure what he was waiting for, or what he wanted from her.

"Is…" She began, hating her voice for coming out in such a pathetic sounding breathy whisper. "Is that better?"

"Thank you," he smiled, reaching up to wrap his warm hands around her still clenched fists. "Things are that much clearer now."

Kenshin's eyebrows rose a little, still looking at her with that patient, yet expectant smile on his face. She could feel her pulse quicken, and hoped desperately that he couldn't feel it through her hands that he held so firmly in his own.

After a moment of heavy silence, he released her hands with a rueful smile and leaned back a slightly, looking almost wistfully up to the sky.

Kaoru didn't understand his strange behavior at all, and found herself just wanting to get away so that she could think things over with a clear head. She began to take the towel from his shoulders, only to find his hand back on her wrist, keeping it where it was.

"We aren't done yet, Kaoru-dono." he told her softly, smiling up at her confusion.

"We aren't?"

"No, not quite," Kenshin let go of her wrist and picked up the shears from beside him and offered them to her, handle first. "The back? If it isn't too much trouble, of course."

She blinked rapidly at him, but took the blades from him in compliance. "Just the ends, Kenshin?"

"No, the whole thing please, Kaoru-dono," he replied quietly, sitting back up and facing forwards once more to allow her access. "All of the damaged parts."

Kaoru was shocked by the notion, and wondered if he truly realised what he was asking her to do. "If I do that, your hair will be very short."

"I know," he nodded patiently. "Only if you don't mind, of course? I don't want to trouble you, Kaoru-dono. It's only that the back would be difficult for me to do alone."

As she moved back around and knelt behind him, she was still uncertain as to whether this was really what he wanted, and spent a few minutes combing through his hair again. She wanted to give them both time to think about what was being said.

"Kaoru-dono?" he questioned, lightly.

"Are… are you really sure you want it all cut off, Kenshin?" she asked again, silently pleading with him to release her.

"Thank you, yes."

"Well then, perhaps you should ask someone with more experience to..."

"I trust you, Kaoru-Dono," he interjected in a voice full to the brim with an unexplainable emotion she couldn't seem to place. "I wouldn't allow anyone else to do this. So please?"

Kaoru took a deep cleansing breath to steady her nerves before gathering up his hair in one hand and holding the blades steadily in the other. He had asked her to do this. He wanted it cut. It _needed _to be cut. He was practically begging her.

How could she refuse?

_Shhnk!_

She sat frozen, Kenshin's severed hair still clasped tightly in her hands, for a very long time. She didn't understand why tears were streaming silently down her cheeks, and she didn't understand why it felt like her heart was breaking, but she knew the pain she was feeling was a terrible one.

Suddenly Kenshin's arms were around her, holding her in a tight embrace as she quietly wept for him. The shears fell from her hand, smacking loudly on the wooden engawa, but she couldn't seem to release the hair she held. Throwing her arms around him desperately, both wanting, and needing to give, comfort, her now free hand went automatically to the back of his neck and his shorn hair.

Her sobs grew louder and her body shook from the intensity of them as she cried her heart out, held securely in his comforting embrace.

"I'm sorry Kaoru-dono, I'm sorry," he whispered gently, agony lacing his words. "Please don't cry."

His hand slid down her arm to where she still clutched what remained of his ponytail, and carefully pried her fingers apart until the hair was released.

"That's right," he said. "Let go. Just let go."

Kaoru let the hair fall away from her hand and cried harder as Kenshin wrapped himself around her and held her close to him.

Long minutes passed, him rocking her gently back and forth, whispering words of comfort and regret until her tears subsided enough for her to attempt to talk again.

"I-I'm s-s-so s-s-s-sorry…"

"No no, shh," he cut her off gently, tilting her chin so that she was looking up at him, "don't be sorry for this. You've taken a weight from my shoulders."

Her breathing was still coming in short, erratic gasps, but she could feel herself beginning to calm a little with his words. She looked up at him with huge eyes as he smiled with something like relief and wiped away the tracks of her tears.

"Now the new growth can come through." he smiled meaningfully at her, and she finally realised why she had cried, and why he would never have allowed anyone else to do this for him.

They gazed at each other, both knowing that this had been more than a simple haircut. Kenshin stroked her cheek tenderly, eyes filled with gratitude and love for her, before he lent down and carefully placed a soft, reverent kiss upon her lips.

_Now the new growth can come through._

~End.


End file.
